A mid-Heian poet of a minor branch of the Fujiwara who held low provincial posts and was also known as a musician. One of the Thirty-Six Immortals, he has some forty poems in imperial anthologies, seventeen of them in the Kokinshū, and took part in the poetry contests of Emperor Uda's reign. His Hyakunin Isshu poem laments the loneliness of long life: with all his old friends gone, he has no one to call a companion but the ancient pine of Takasago, which cannot share his memories.
誰をかも 知る人にせむ 高砂の
松も昔の 友ならなくに
Whom can I call a close friend now? Even the pine of Takasago, famed for its long life, is no friend from the old days.
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